So, as of current I am frustrated, mainly because I want a gaming laptop but Im an Xbox player and none of it makes sense. Im on a budget and am wondering how cheap I can go on a gaming laptop until I cant run flight sim and DCS (Digital combat simulator). Those are the only two games I need to use on this Laptop. Also, when I look at the minimum specs to run msfs, I dont know what any of it means and its virtually useless to me… which brings me to you guys. Can this Laptop (I’ll drop a link below) run MSFS? and do you guys know better options in a similar pricepoint? I can’t do anything over $900.
Processor and GPU are reasonable for 1080p gaming, but 8GB of system RAM is a little low, and the 512GB SSD is definitely too small if that’s your only drive.
Are you interested in a laptop because you need the portability or could you, instead, get a desktop?
I ask because I have a 2018 Razer Blade 15” Advanced Model and I’ve always felt it was obnoxious to game on. It’s a really nice computer in terms of build quality, but the fans scream bloody murder and it gets so incredibly hot. It was high-end at the time, and expensive.
If I had to deal with the noise and heat after spending big dollars on a high-budget gaming laptop, then I cannot quite imagine the experience you’re going to have on a low-budget one.
I wouldn’t get another gaming laptop after that experience, unless I had to have the portability.
Honestly, the thing was so frustrating to use that I just ended up back on my Xbox and rarely used the laptop for gaming.
I have definitely used it for MSFS and it has managed, but I nearly always used my Xbox until I built a high-end desktop this year. The difference in quality of life between the laptop and the desktop is massive. I’d never go back.
Wouldn’t you be better off trying to find a budget desktop? I think you’d get more for your money going that direction and your quality of life experience would probably be better.
The CPU and GPU are downgrades in that option. I wouldn’t recommend it.
The first laptop with 16GB of RAM and at minimum a 1TB SSD would be a better use of funds.
If the first laptop has an extra M.2 slot available for upgrade, you could buy a 2TB Gen 3 SSD for well under $100 (I’ve seen as low as $65) and that would be a great second drive for MSFS.
Due to 1000 reasons that would be hard to even start going into, it would be very difficult for a full pc to be an option. But, if you have a suggestion for a good built pc, I would be open to at least looking at it in case circumstances change in the future.
There is another option, small form factor gaming PCs.
They are way more compact and portable than your typical monstrous RGB LED infested gaming tower. Downsides are they cost more to build and are a challenge to get really high performance in a tiny case. However they are typically still faster than an equivalent laptop.
Do be aware you cannot take water cooled PC on most aircraft as carry on luggage.
Here is an older video of a guy building a typical SFF gaming rig.
I didn’t spend a lot of time researching, but even with discounts at major electronics retailers like Microcenter, the “cheapest” reasonable laptop I could find was a minimum of $900, so I think you would need to set your floor and be able to tell yourself you are able to start there and only go up.
Laptops have terrible thermals even with cooling pads underneath.
MSFS heats hardware up quickly and starts pushing temps right at the menu screen🤣, so thermal throttling is possible unfortunately.
The laptop I’m on now used to run MSFS until I got my current desktop. With seriously tweaked settings, I was able to get nice visuals with frames running in the 25-35 range - enough to look fluid most of the time. I bought it in mid 2020 in preparation for the release of MSFS later that year. The fans ran like a hair drier, but it worked. A comparable machine today would probably be out of your budget.
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3550H with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx, 2100 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
½TB OS drive (was nearly 80% full before uninstalling the sim)
GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Note - the laptop came with 16 GB of RAM. Upgrading to 32 only gained about a 5% boost in frames.
I use a gaming laptop for portability. Right now I’m enjoying a nice day out on my deck. I just finished a couple MSFS flights via VR.
I run a couple year-old HP Omen laptop with the i7-11800H, 32G RAM, 1TB SSD, and 3070 GPU runs MSFS pretty well. I use an XBox controller, mouse and HP G2 Reverb VR. I do need a faster internet than my DSL will provide. I keep hoping for fiber to the home.
I use a separate laptop cooling fan pad to aid in heat dissipation because MSFS really heats it up.
The bad news; although I often use the laptop for non-gaming programs on battery power, it won’t run MSFS on battery alone. MSFS just uses so much CPU, GPU and internal fan power that the power supply has to be attached.
The other negative is the power supply is huge, making the usual laptop portability capability difficult. That supply would be a pain to carry for business travel purposes. Just taking it out onto the porch or to other rooms is not an issue.
Not a chance…
